Professional Development for Early Care and Education Professionals: Creating a Reflective Practice

Pre-Schoolers

Professional development is important to your ability to meet the needs of the children in your care. In addition to the reflection questions included in the main article here, you can also ask yourself variations of reflection questions like the ones below:

• Could I do more to meet the academic and social/emotional needs of each child in my care?

• What skills do I need to develop to improve my ability to observe, document, and communicate about children’s learning?

• Do the children look to me as a model of appropriate problem solving strategies?

• Could I easily explain the importance of play in the preschool classroom to a parent or family member?

• Does my classroom promote learning for children regardless of ability, gender, and cultural experience?

Here are some topics that may help you in your work with preschool age children: